AMD's most successful processor, the K7 (Athlon\AthlonXP) has come a long way in the last four years. We've seen it move from a 0.25 micron process to the current 0.13 micron, and from Slot A to the more reliable Socket A (462) of current times. Along the way this... dare I say... loveable processor has come to incorporate such things as Intel's SSE technology and seen a shift in L2 cache on die and upgraded to 512KB. For most consumers however, it is the price point of the AthlonXP processors that makes them so attractive. Significantly less expensive than Intel's top of the line counterparts, and with just about the same raw performance across the board, the only downside has been higher thermals and noisy cooling solutions. There are ways around the down sides, and if you are crafty enough to choose the right aftermaket cooler, a well vented case, and go easy on the case fans, you can have a pretty damn powerful computer with noise levels approaching that of the traditionally quiet Pentium 4.
